This blog post is a writing exercise from writers.stackexchange.com. Visit the Writers chat room every Tuesday for new writing exercises. This week’s exercise: 10 minutes to write about “A nice summer memory”.

The memory was clear, as if it only happened yesterday. It was my sister and me, riding bikes down the neighborhood street. Every so often a friend would come out and join us, or we’d stop to play games. Our friend Billy had a really nice bike. He could go the fastest down the big hill up the street; he always beat me and my sister to the bottom of the hill.

My sister and I rode our bikes to the park that day. There were a few families there, some kids running around about our age. We went over and hung out on the merry go round, seeing who could get it to spin the fastest, and see who could hold on the longest. We started a bit of a competition, because soon a whole bunch of kids were gathering around to give it a shot, to critique other’s attempts and tell them, in so many words, what stupid things they were doing.

That’s when I saw her, a girl that looked to be roughly my age, sitting alone on the swings. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, but I didn’t know why. I looked around, but no one seemed to notice her. I didn’t understand why this unassumingly looking girl was all alone, so I went over to talk with her.

“Hi!” I said. She didn’t look at me. She just sat in the swing and stared at the ground, ignoring me.

“What’s your name?” I moved in front of her, but she never looked up or acknowledged that I had even spoken.

I finally reached out and tapped her shoulder. She looked up at me. She said something, but it was garbled and I couldn’t understand. I tried talking with her, but she started crying and ran off.

I went back and asked my sister about her, because she knew everyone. I found out that the girl was deaf, she couldn’t hear anything and she could only really communicate through sign language.

After that day, I found some books in the public library and started learning how to sign. I tend found out where she lived, thanks to my sister, and went and visited her place. I introduced myself with my clumsy signing to her parents and told them how I met her.

After getting over her initial shyness we became good friends. We spent a lot of time together that summer, playing in the park, riding bikes, going swimming. Looking back, she was my first girlfriend.

Sadly, her dad got a good job in a big city, and they moved away. We kept in contact, but we quickly grew apart. I still think about that summer. But I’ve lost contact with her. I hope that she’s out there, living a good life.